


Raphaella la Cognizi meets the Fairchilds

by WillowWispFlame



Series: So Sings a Song of Slaughter [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: F/M, Family Reunions, Gen, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist is a Mechanism, Movie Night, Slaughter Avatar Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Mechanisms Are Grifter's Bone, The Mechanisms Were The Archivist's College Band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24942289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowWispFlame/pseuds/WillowWispFlame
Summary: Raphaella and Ben organize a movie night, but are the only ones to show up. They've been the only Mechanisms willing to meet up together regularly at all.The Fairchilds' pick for live music fell through, so they follow a recommendation from a friend and hire a pianist and drummer duo. Simon thought things were getting a little too chummy around here.
Relationships: Raphaella la Cognizi & Drumbot Brian, Raphaella la Cognizi/Drumbot Brian
Series: So Sings a Song of Slaughter [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775218
Comments: 13
Kudos: 180
Collections: So Sings a Song of Slaughter





	Raphaella la Cognizi meets the Fairchilds

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh it is 2am but I finally finished. Enjoy!

Raphaella’s situation was awkward. She had hoped to pursue a career in music, but now that she and her friends had been cursed, Raphaella had little hope of ever making it big. It was depressing really, to have the burgeoning band’s dreams be crushed. So, she was back to her day job. At least it paid well. 

A sharp pop jolted Raphaella out of her thoughts, and she refocused on what she was doing. Preparing snacks, it was movie night. She readied a small bowl of pretzels and scavenged around for the bag of gummy worms that she just knew were here somewhere. 

The insistent popping of the bag she had heating up in the microwave slowed from its chaotic tempo, and Raphaella turned it off with a quick press of the button. The microwave door popped open and the smell of fresh popcorn filled her small kitchen. She left the bag to cool down for a few seconds and to grab a large plastic bowl out of her cupboard. She carefully tore the top open and poured the popcorn into the bowl. It was lightly salted, just like she preferred, but she readied a small bowl of butter for her guest as well. 

Raphaella set out the various snacks she had gathered on her coffee table and looked over each of them carefully. She was forgetting something.

A knock came at the door, and she dropped her worry and answered it. Raphaella clicked open the lock and swung open the door, revealing Ben holding a couple liters of soda.

“Hey Raph,” he greeted, face brightening immediately.

“Ben! Come on in,” she said, eyeing the plastic bottles full of delicious ichor. “You have just what I was forgetting, can’t have a movie night without copious amounts of soda.”

Raphaella broke out some glasses while Ben set the bottles on the table and perused the selection of snacks. 

When she returned, he had spread himself comfortably on the couch and set out three movies to pick from. 

“What do we have this week?” Raphaella asked. 

“ _ Thor _ , the new  _ Transformers _ movie, and the most recent  _ Pirates of the Caribbean _ movie.”

“Hm, how about we watch Pirates first.”

“ _ Transformers _ second. Yeah it’s heavy in special effects and explosions, but that’s just Michael Bay’s style. I don’t know what’s up with him and his love for explosions, but it sure does look good.”

“Then  _ Thor _ last?”

“Sure, why not.”

“You don’t sound too excited,” Raphaella said with a laugh.

“I’m a DC fan, alright?”

“Spiderman would be disappointed.”

“Spiderman is the only worthwhile Marvel character. I hadn’t even heard of the Avengers other than the Hulk.”

“That’s because they haven’t had any movies made about them before now,” Raphaella said as she poured herself a glass of Ginger Ale. 

“True enough,” Ben said. He slid their first pick out of the plastic and popped out the DVD. He took a moment to check the back for scratches before slipping it into Raphaella’s DVD player. “Did any of the others say they were coming?”

“Remember to switch it to HDMI 3, and no. We’re on our own again. ‘Too busy to get together,’ for the last few months in a row.”

“At least we’re both good company, eh?” Ben joked, trying to lighten the mood. He bumped into Raphaella’s keyboard where it was standing crowded next to the television, and steadied it with a hand.

“Yeah,” Raphaella said with a smile. Out of everyone, she had seemed like the only one willing to keep the band together and meeting after what happened to them. Sure they were cursed, but they at least had each other. The Mechanisms were always welcome at her flat, they all had a key, but no one except Ben had come over since Jessica disappeared. 

It was difficult to stay close when gathering together brought up uncomfortable memories of what they had become, and what they had done. With them broken up, the spell was weaker. They could sing and play music, and no one would die. But put too many of them together, and people would get hurt. Jordan’s singing had been enough to kill a few ants, but Raphaella suspected that insects were less hardy than humans in this case. 

Jon had hypothesized after the last concert that four was the magic death number, the band that cursed them had four members and had basically killed everyone in  _ The Good Ship,  _ except for them _. _ It made some sense. There was something about the number four sounding something close to death in another language as well, but that point had been lost on most of them. None of them had dared experiment further than a solo, and that was mostly Jordan singing to himself while working at his pest control business. 

And Basira, who was. Yeah. Raphaella didn’t want to think about Basira right now, now it was movie time.

The  _ Transformers _ movie’s menu popped up, and the two Mechanisms leaned into each other's sides. Being together unearthed memories of performing, of singing and feeling the rush of power and bloodlust run through them, but they found comfort in being together. They needed the ease of being near someone who understood in a visceral way why the Mechanisms had stopped performing, why they had stripped all evidence off of themselves off of the internet where possible, and why they could never explain what happened. 

By the credits of the last movie, Raphaella and Ben had consumed all of the snacks and soda they had prepared. 

They had also fallen asleep on the couch together, missing the credits scenes entirely as they leaned on each other like they were the only support they both had left. Ben’s cheek squished into the top of Raphaella’s head where it was tucked into his neck. 

If they were awake, then maybe they would have been hit with the memories of years long past, when the group was a little larger, and they would have brought sleeping bags and camped out together on the floor. Jon and Kofi would be passed out in the corner where they had been using the little light offered by a torch to study for their exams. Alex and Jessica would be half-tucked under the coffee table, where they had sat to watch the movie upside down for a more “authentic” experience. Basira would be splayed out on the recliner, eyelids fluttering to catch the last seconds of the movie with Nastya, who had moved back to Russia after her student exchange program had ended and thankfully missed this mess, sitting on the floor sleeping with her back to the front of the chair. Jordan would be stretched out lengthwise on the couch, long legs over both Ben and Raphaella’s laps, where they slept in the same position today. 

[]++++||=======>

Raphaella sat back from adjusting her makeup. In lieu of the thick slash of eyeliner that Basira liked to wear for Ashes, she had gone for a more artistic look, making little feathered wings stretch out from the corners of eyes, echoing the wire and fabric wings currently increasing her shoulder width substantially. Raphaella didn’t normally go for heavy makeup like the others, preferring to stick to bright red lipstick, but this felt right somehow. 

A light rap knocked on the door. Ben. “Are you almost finished in there?” he said, voice muffled slightly by the door. 

Raphaella stood and unlocked the door, opening it for him. Ben was already in Drumbot Brian’s waistcoat and suit, but his face was still barren of the copper and brass colors and dark black details that made him look more like Drumbot than Ben. She didn’t envy the effort that it took to create that image. “You just caught me finishing,” she said with a lightness she didn’t feel.

“Looks great,” Ben offered. “Trying out something new then?”

“Yeah, I thought I might as well join the facepaint club.”

Ben laughed, a deep and breathy sound. “Well, I’m glad I caught you finishing, I still have to get ready you know,” he said, lifting his hand where he gripped a top hat and small makeup bag.

“I’ll get out of your way then,” she said and slipped out, careful not to poke him in the face with the ends of her wings. 

Raphaella passed several service workers lugging a large table through the venue the two Mechanisms had found themselves about to perform in. The Fairchilds had approached Raphaella a week ago, having heard of her piano skills through a friend of the family who had attended one of her recitals before she had even joined the Mechanisms. They wanted her to perform live for their family reunion, and offered her an honestly ridiculous amount of money. 

It was a well paid gig that would hopefully take the edge off the need to perform that was creeping into her bones, as well as a way to use their curse for good for once. That is, trolling the rich. Jon had offered some of his research on the Fairchilds to them, apparently they had a jewel thief for an ancestor and were currently very, very wealthy. They apparently worked in aerospace engineering, underwater drilling, and shipping. 

It was a little too good to pass up, but something was suspicious about the way that they had asked about getting her ‘compatriots’ to perform as well. She had invited Ben to accompany her, they had something of an album and had started to combine their talents, and that seemed to appease the group. It being close to Halloween, the family had also informed them that costumes were necessary. Costume parties were more of an American thing as far as Raphaella was concerned, but the rich did have their eccentricities. At least it gave them a reason to dress up and really play the part. 

Something inside of her was overly pleased wearing this outfit, dressing up to perform. She excused it as familiarity. 

Raphaella made her way to the grand piano that had been shown to her when they arrived by an old, pinkish, wrinkled man. He had been surprisingly energetic and nimble despite his apparent age. A drum set had been put together next to the piano, thoughtful of their hosts. 

She ran her fingers over the expensive keys of the piano, pressing in and pausing to listen to the delightful sounds the instrument made. It was perfectly in tune. She sat at the bench and played a few chords to familiarize herself with the instrument, half of her attention to the service workers who hurried in and out of the room as the final touches were made to the decorations. 

A florist was hastily gluing a broken stem together where she sat, the flower matching those in the beautiful centerpiece. As Raphaella la Cognizi’s notes echoed through the room, she finally gave up on repairing the doomed flower, ripping it apart with her fingers and tossing the petals into the bucket at her feet. The florist’s daughter, or assistant but their features were too similar to be coincidence, hurriedly picked up the bucket and the woman’s tools as the older woman stood and pushed the chair in. They retreated into one of the back rooms. 

After a half hour had passed since she had seen him last, Ben joined her. He sent a grin her way as he took a seat at the drum set, loosening his drumsticks from where they decorated his hat. 

Once the room had cleared of any occupants other than themselves, they began the steady song they had prepared. The two were scheduled to play for three hours, with short breaks. To start out the night, they planned to play a soft and repetitive song to warm up, one that could conceivably be played indefinitely. The elder Fairchild who had hired them promised that he would encourage his family to make suggestions, but before then they had free reign. They didn’t feel like playing anything substantial to an empty room, however. 

The elder Fairchild popped his head into the room as they were getting into the rhythm, embracing their personas as Raphaella la Cognizi and Drumbot Brian. He gave them a wink and a thumbs up, and after that the Fairchild family slowly filtered in. 

As the two Mechanisms switched to something more complicated, Raphaella had to notice something odd about the Fairchilds. For a family, they all looked completely dissimilar. Their features, hair, and coloration hardly ever matched. It was like someone had grabbed thirty of the closest strangers off of the streets of the world and gathered them all together in one room. She glanced at Brian, who nodded to her. He had noticed too.

For now, they ignored the strange group, falling deeper into the thrill of performing. The drawn out tempo of feeding over time gripped them as tensions rose throughout the evening. Over the next hour, they took some satisfaction in the voices rising in anger throughout the room as family members squabbled over petty things, at the chairs scrapped a little too loud against the ground, and the harsh words exchanged. 

During one of their breaks, a man with a lightning-shaped scar spreading over his skin approached them. The air around him smelled strongly of ozone.

“Have a request for us?” Brian asked, sipping his glass of water. 

“Uh, yeah, how about Wonderwall?” 

Raphaella couldn’t help it, she laughed. Brian cracked up beside her. 

“Sure,” she said, dabbing at the tears in her eyes. The man with the lightning scar just grinned at them. “By the way, what’s your name?”

“I’m Michael Crew, but you can call me Mike.”

“Not a Fairchild?” Brian asked, intrigued.

“Not yet, but Simon has been trying to convince me to let them adopt me. I really prefer my current last name though.”

Raphaella refused to let the strangeness of the situation get to her. “I’m Raphaella la Cognizi,” she offered, extending a hand. He shook it. “Nice to meet you, Mike.”

“I’m Drumbot Brian,” her partner introduced with a salut of his sticks against the brim of his hat.

“Good to meet you both,” Mike said. 

“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall,” she said flippantly as she turned on the bench to sit at the piano once more. She paused for a second to remember the tune, Brian started the rhythm helpfully beside her. Then she launched into a piano cover of Wonderwall. 

Mike stood by for a moment, grinning, before he turned and strode back to his table, greeting one of the Fairchilds with a shove on the shoulder. 

As the time they had been hired to play for started to come to a close, a sense of urgency started building. Raphaella and Brian felt the shift, leaning into it with their songs and driving it forward, constructively interfering with waves of hostility. They fell into it like second nature, letting the tension build and build until it reached a breaking point.

That point shattered with a thwack, a brawl starting up between a few of the drunker members of the party. Punches flew, and the two Mechanisms adjusted their tempo to match that of the fight, the senseless violence melting into the song like butter.

They only faltered when one woman threw a man into the air and he hung there in the middle of the ceiling like a balloon. He screamed down at her, “I hate this family!”

With that, the rest of the room dissolved into chaos. Bodies went flying, gliding really, through the air as the Fairchilds took to the air like Peter Pan. Though their faces were dumbstruck, Raphaella and Brian finished their song, the last of the night they decided. Thankfully they didn’t need their mouths to perform. 

As they wrapped up, scooping up the few belongings they had with them, the old man who had hired them landed next to them. Raphaella backed up quickly, pressing Brian behind her. Her wings seemed exceptionally flimsy in this room full of flying people. The sound of chimes clattering against each other emanated from the old man, and Raphaella heard something like an old pipe organ blaring as someone tried to use his head as a stepping stone. He ducked out of the way just in time, leaving his family member to crash into a centerpiece. Hopefully the florist had gotten a deposit for damages. 

“Thanks for coming,” he said with a grin. “This is the liveliest this family has been in years, it was getting a little dull around here. A performance by the Slaughter’s Bloody Band was just the thing to mix things up.”

“Um, no problem,” said Brian. 

Raphaella just stared dumbly, unable to comprehend the twist the evening had taken. 

The old man clapped her on the shoulder and offered Raphaella a business card with his other hand. “If you ever need a favor, give me a call,” he said.

Raphaella took the card, glancing at the name. Simon Fairchild. 

“Now, if you will excuse me,” Simon Fairchild said before launching himself skyward, crashing into someone immediately. 

Raphaella and Brian glanced at one another after watching him go, coming to the same conclusion. They marched their way to the door and flung it open, retreating from the skybound battlefield. 

As she and Ben made their way through the parking lot to their car, Raphaella spotted Mike standing by a light pole, tapping away at his cell phone. He had a bruise forming on his cheek. As she watched, he looked up and met her eyes. He gave her a smile and waved before Ben clicked the car unlocked. The beep jolted her out of her daze, and Raphaella hopped in. 

They were silent throughout the drive, the occasional streetlight passing by lighting up the dark in the car. Ben pulled up at her flat complex and parked. He let out a heavy sigh.

“I guess being hired to play music for a family of rich people who can fly isn’t much stranger than fighting supernatural bugs,” he mused.

“Ben!” Raphaella gasped, and lightly slapped his shoulder. His easy grin wiped away her worries. 

“Can I stay the night?” he asked. His hands were shaking slightly.

She reached over and grabbed one between her hands. It was warm. “Of course,” she said. “You know you are always welcome.”

“Thanks Raph. I guess we should tell the others what happened?”

She hummed, tired. “In the morning,” she decided. 

He squeezed her hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Can you guess what year this takes place in?


End file.
